Such thoughts left him instantly as he heard the mechanised, insane whisperings of the Land Raider cease for a moment. The vehicle's machine-spirit had been merged with the essence of a daemon upon the factory world of Ghalmek, bound within the casing of the tank by the fabricators and sorcerers of the Legion with the aid of the chirameks.
'Entering the blind cloud, Icon Bearer,' said the drawling twin voices of the Land Raider's operators, warriors who had long ago become one with the machine.
The daemonic, mechanised whisperings of the tank began again, the voices agitated and excited.
He knew that the other Elysians were trying to make contact, but their voices morphed into hellish, bestial screams and roars. He wondered if that was how his voice sounded to their ears.
The closer they got to the damned insane tower of the enemy, the more garbled and chaotic the sounds became. He switched the system off, reasoning that he would rather hear nothing than that hellish blare. Yet even with the systems disabled, his earpieces blared with the evil sound and he slammed his fist into his helmet in desperation to get the insane noise out of his head.
The Valkyrie was ripped apart as it was struck by anti-aircraft fire and the pilot was certain that he heard laughter in his ears, even as the cockpit exploded into a billowing fireball.
Tank Commander Walyon grinned as he stood in the cupola of his Leman Russ battle tank, the wind and smoke blowing in his face. The lowered visor of his helmet protected his eyes, not that there was anything to see as the tank thundered through the smoke.
He glanced out to either side. He could dimly make out only the closest tanks, but he knew that there were scores of vehicles spread out on each wing. He was at the point of the arrowhead, roaring towards the enemy, and his heart was racing.
He had been waiting for this day for decades. He knew that being a tank commander within the Elysian ranks was regarded as a dubious honour; all good Elysians dreamt of attacking via drop-ship, for that was the rhetoric drilled into the soldiers from day one. But tanks had always been Walyon's true love and he had accepted the post with relish. The tank company within the 133rd was regarded as little more than a joke; few Elysian regiments even had a tank company. The other officers regarded the position as a dead end and he knew they sniggered behind his back - promotion out of harm's way, they said. Waylon did not care, for within the ranks of the tank company he had found his home.
However, what had followed was years of boredom and resentment. Time after time the 133rd were launched into battle, but the armoured divisions were held back.
Finally, his time had come and he would be damned if he wasn't going to enjoy it. He smiled like a child given his first exhilarating trip on the harbour shuttle of his home city-hive of Valorsia, and he screamed with exhilaration into the whipping wind.
Somewhere far overhead the Valkyries were disgorging their living cargos. Drop-troopers would be falling through the atmosphere towards their target, the second line of the enemy's defences. Somewhere behind, the Gorgons of the Mechanicus were grinding forwards in the wake of his battle tanks.
An echelon of low-flying Thunderbolt heavy fighters screamed overhead, dull shapes in the haze, utilising the same cover of smoke as the battle tanks, and Walyon punched his fist in the air as they passed, willing them on.
He grinned wildly, feeling as though he were screaming through a vacuum of white smoke. The feeling was not unlike falling blindly through clouds on a combat drop, but this felt much more secure, for he had a giant battle tank steed beneath him. Excitement building, he pulled out his shimmering sabre and levelled it out in front. He felt like one of the daring cavalry marshals of history and he screamed wordlessly, glorying in the sensation of speed.
That was when he saw the massive, red shape looming out of the smoke ahead of him, and the next second of his life seemed to occur in horrifying slow motion. He dimly registered twin flashes of searing white lascannons and the battle tank to his right exploded in a rising ball of black smoke.
Walyon ducked back within the cupola as heavy bolter rounds ripped across the hull of his tank. The command tank's driver must have seen the Land Raider at exactly the same moment and the Leman Russ slewed to the side in an attempt to avoid the massive shape. The move was one of desperation and instinct and the Land Raider turned into it, smashing into the side of the Leman Russ at full speed.
The force of the impact slammed the battle tank onto its side with the sickening sound of crunching metal. The front of the Land Raider rose up into the air like a looming monster of the depths as the impact and its momentum lifted it. The Leman Russ rolled onto its top and the massive traitor tank smashed down upon it, engines roaring as its tracks spun wildly, gaining no traction.
Metal screamed as it buckled beneath the weight of the giant and Walyon was buffeted from side to side, smashing his head on the inside of the cupola, the hot taste of exhaust fumes in his mouth. The next moments of his life were a blur as the Leman Russ rolled wildly across the salt plain, flipping and finally coming to rest upright.
Dazed and shell-shocked, blood running from nose, Walyon called out weakly to the crew within the tank. Pulling himself upright, wincing and feeling as if every bone in his body had been smashed by the severity of the impact, he looked across the smoky void of the salt plains. He couldn't see far, but now that the Leman Russ engine was dead, he could hear the roar of engines, the chatter of gunfire, the heavy boom of battle cannons and the hissing scream of las-cannons. Explosions rocked the earth and rising plumes of oily, black smoke and bright orange fireballs pierced the haze. He coughed painfully, spitting blood, and he closed his eyes against the burning pain in his ribs.
An enemy Rhino screamed out of the smoke and Walyon dimly saw Chaos Space Marines standing in the open top of the vehicle, weapons raised. His vision was blurring before his eyes and he barely saw the plume of white-hot plasma screaming towards him, nor the meltagun that blurred the air as it fired upon his beloved tank.
Walyon died, his flesh burning and liquefying, and a moment later the Leman Russ exploded violently, throwing the blackened hull into the air.
A battle cannon shell detonated on the flank of the Land Raider's hull, spinning the behemoth to the side, its momentum lost.
'Out!' roared Burias. 'Lower the attack ramp!'
Leading the coteries from the Land Raider, desperate to get to grips with the enemy, Burias swung his head from side to side as battle tanks roared past them. Snarling, he snapped off an ineffectual shot with his bolt pistol.
One of the tanks spun amid a rising cloud of salt dust as its track was blown clear by a meltagun shot and the coterie broke into a run towards the slowing vehicle, roaring to the heavens.
One of the tank's side sponsons screeched as it rotated and unleashed its salvo into the Word Bearers, ripping apart bodies. Burias leapt over the fallen warrior-brothers.
Drak'shal surged to the surface of the Icon Bearer's being and his shape blurred as muscles bulged within his power armour. Bunching his legs beneath him, he leapt through the air, landing atop the Demolisher tank. He gripped the hatch atop the cannon turret and ripped it clear of its housing in one brutal movement, wires and cables sparking as the metal was wrenched out of shape, and he hurled it aside. Thumbing a pair of grenades into his hand, he hurled them into the exposed interior before leaping from the tank.
The grenades detonated behind him, but his focus had fixed on something new, and he stared into the impenetrable smoke cloud, his nostrils flaring. A giant shape appeared, roaring towards the Word Bearers.
Larger than even a Land Raider, a super-heavy Gorgon transport vehicle loomed out of the smoke. A giant, angled assault ram of thick metal protected its front, and the gunfire of the coterie pinged off its surface. The metal
